


singing for joy of heart

by asphodelgrimoire



Series: sinners in the hands of an angry god [8]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Decorating, Fluff, M/M, Moving In Together, Trans Aaron Burr, Trans Male Character, sort of, yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7799203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asphodelgrimoire/pseuds/asphodelgrimoire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they get home (home, Aaron marvels distantly), David and Rebecca are at the table, and Mr. Bellamy sits next to them, looks dire. David is dressed too casually, glances at his watch like there’s somewhere else he’d rather be. There probably is. Abiah is leaning against the wall, mostly serene.</p><p>Jon doesn’t seem perturbed by this image and takes it in stride. “Is this an intervention?” </p><p>“Not really. More of a team meeting,” David takes the liberty to answer him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	singing for joy of heart

**Author's Note:**

> wow im so sorry this is really boring and it took like a whole month
> 
> i honestly don't know why
> 
> the next one will be cooler i promise

It’s in August that Mr. Bellamy begins to bully them.

“Why is the bedroom still like that?”

“The church could use donations, especially furniture.”

“It doesn’t make any sense, really, Jonathan. I’m not being cheap here, it’s just rational. Why do you need two beds? Two tables? The room really needs a makeover in general, since, well, I suppose he’ll be staying with us for longer than the summer, and personalizing it for now will make it better for him when you go back to school in the fall, and-”

Until finally, Jon cracks, looking to a secretly giddy Aaron over the table and making a vague gesture.

“Fine,” he hisses, and Aaron manages to keep his acute satisfaction to himself, but Mr. Bellamy gives a triumphant smirk that suggests he knew Jon would eventually succumb from the beginning. “We’ll remodel the goddamn room with a secret passageway, happy?” Jon says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Elated,” he lilts, and slips out of his chair to get another cup of coffee.

Jon sighs, raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. He turns to Aaron again, this time with a look of resignation. He smiles a little as he can clearly see the wheels turning in Aaron’s head. “Do you want to head to Bed Bath & Beyond? If we’re going to redecorate the room, we at least have to do it right.”

Aaron nods, despite not having a single clue of what he wants the room to look like. He voices this concern to Jon, who waves him off. “We’ll figure it out.”

By the end of the shopping trip, it’s more or less figured out.

At one store, Aaron flops onto one of the firmer mattresses and laughs, Jon following his lead soon after. “I love this one,” he says. It’s huge and fluffy, barely yields under his weight. He’s looked at the price tag though, and he’s sure that-

“Me too,” Jon replies, bounces a little as he sits up. The mattress gives way for him more than it does for Aaron, but he seems equally impressed by it. “Let’s get it.”

Aaron holds up the tag incredulously, and Jon shrugs at it. “If Dad is willing to coerce me into interior design, he’s going to have to be willing to pay for it. He can’t complain anyway, considering Mom has the highest paying job in the country, and I’m going to be a lawyer pretty soon,” he explains, while the sales associate standing three mattresses down snickers. Jon waves him over and chatters mindlessly about their situation while the man nods in vague understanding. “Well, you know,” Jon says in pseudo-conclusion, making wide gestures as he does and garnering the attention of another shopper or two. Aaron stands up to make room for another couple, who converse enthusiastically about the same bed. He thinks that the associate has only allowed Jon to go on this long because of the apparent attention being brought to the mattress.

While Jon chooses an intricate dark hardwood bedframe (with consultation from both Aaron and the sales associate), Aaron sees about four people ordering that mattress. He shakes his head and smiles.

They call the house once out of the store to let Mr. Bellamy know that a bed is going to be delivered later in the day, and Jon sounds particularly smug about it, knowing that he’s surprised by their quick decision. “Make Sam and Elizabeth move the other beds, because I think they said something about setting it up in-home,” he says, and when he hangs up, it’s with a contented sigh. “Who knew redecorating could be so fun?” Jon looks to Aaron and tugs him in to kiss his forehead. He’s still as loving as ever, but Aaron can’t help noticing that he’s less feeble in his actions. He asks permission before he does things rather than not bringing them up at all. It’s nice. “What else do we need?”

“Um,” Aaron pulls out his embarrassingly detailed list of ‘necessities,’ holding it close to his face so Jon doesn’t see his paisley doodles. “Paint, curtains, bedding, art, maybe a new bedside table and a new lamp. I don’t know, really.”

Jon hums. “That lamp really does need replacing. Alright, what color is the room going to be?”

Aaron shrugs. He didn’t really get an idea before they left of how he wanted everything to look.

“That’s alright, we can figure it out as we go along,” he says, then seems to ponder. “We probably should have painted the room _before_ we had the bed delivered. But you know what? I think the look on Dad’s face is going to be worth it. It isn’t that hard to drag the bed into the center of the room anyway,” Jon starts the car and throws Aaron an almost teasing smile, draping his arm over the console. “I know that’s not all though, is it?”

Aaron shrugs and hands over the list, written on a little watermelon-shaped notepad that he found on Mrs. Bellamy’s desk. He doesn’t want to ask for too much, but Jon is still smiling.

“We can get anything you want,” he says smoothly, and Aaron is placated for the moment.

“Anything, you say?”

“Anything.”

-

“Aaron, just so you know, ‘anything’ doesn’t include ugly paintings,” Jon gripes.

It is sort of ugly, but Aaron points it out anyway. “It isn’t ugly, it’s just different. Don’t bully the paintings.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Do you want it?”

“Not really, and anyway, it’s your room too,” he says. Although Jon usually likes the same things he does, he wouldn’t stop Jon from getting something that only he liked. He expects the same treatment.

They choose a desaturated slate blue for the walls, and a fluffy bedding set- the comforter is white with sunflowers on it, with matching pillow cases. Aaron picks pale yellow curtains. He makes most of the decorating decisions, but occasionally Jon throws in a suggestion.

“I have to hand it to you, yellow is the ugliest color there is, but I like the sunflowers a lot,” Jon says, sliding a print of _Starry Night_ into the cart without even looking.

Aaron raises an eyebrow. Jon isn’t a fan of visual art, but it does match the walls. “Yellow is the ugliest color? What about green? And why don’t you get the sunflower painting too?”

Jon tips _Sunflowers_ into the cart and whistles. “Dually noted. But still. Green has yellow in it.”

Aaron can’t argue with that logic. They go through the store and buy a few more things, but his head is somewhere else.

He remembers his bedroom at the house in Stockbridge. He shared it with his sister, two beds not unlike the current setup in Jon’s room. There was a wooden cross on one off-white wall, and a bookshelf that mostly held their few mixed personal items. Sally’s mirror, the paper flowers and cranes that she made almost compulsively, some stuffed animals that had literally seen better days, a picture of their parents, a shared jewelry box. On Aaron’s shelves, a group picture of the high school volleyball team, too many lifestyle magazines, and a rotary dial telephone from Rhoda’s attic that he had taken pliers to. Aside from that, an ugly ceiling fan and two spring mattresses. Decorating in any way was out of the question.

His Princeton dorm was better, but he didn’t know how- or get the chance- to personalize it. There was a white erase board above his bed, but he had nothing to write. The room, originally meant for two people, also had two beds. He’d never slept in one that didn’t. Perks of being a university president’s son. It was better that way. He could sleep on the other bed if the one William always sat on made him nervous. After winter break, he stopped sleeping in that one entirely, covering it with textbooks and notes.

For the first time, he’ll have a room with one bed. He’ll do what he wants with it.

“Ready?” Jon asks, arms around a bundle of paper bags.

“Yeah,” he says, and Jon smiles at him like he knows what’s going through his mind.

When they get home ( _home_ , Aaron marvels distantly), David and Rebecca are at the table, and Mr. Bellamy sits next to them, looks dire. David is dressed too casually, glances at his watch like there’s somewhere else he’d rather be. There probably is. Abiah is leaning against the wall, mostly serene.

Jon doesn’t seem perturbed by this image and takes it in stride. “Is this an intervention?”

“Not really. More of a team meeting,” David takes the liberty to answer him.

“Team meeting for what, exactly?”

Rebecca can’t contain her excitement. “We’re your HGTV Design Star team!”

“Sam isn’t included because we didn’t want it to turn into an MTV Cribs team,” David adds, and Samuel grunts from his bedroom, echoing and indignant.

Aaron opens his mouth to address them, a rarity, when two girls emerge side by side from the hallway and startle him. They’re of equal small stature and wear white shirts, but those might just be the only similar things between them. On one side, the image of solemnity. The girl has an even pallor, and straight hair in a ponytail. She wrings her hands with carefully pursed lips, angles her shoulders in, and despite them being the same height, she appears the smaller of the two. The other girl has bronze skin, all hard lines and squared shoulders. Her hair, dark cascading curls, is down with two braids tied in the back. She smiles, sunny, when she sees Aaron and Jon.

Jon returns the grin. “All wives on location and accounted for. Great.”

The golden girl nods. Despite her lighter skin tone and lacking height, Aaron realizes with some apprehension, she has a certain likeness to his mother. “Exactly how I like it. The girls are united once again. And your house has great Wi-Fi. I was just showing Silence around, since I think she’s only been here once before. Just so you know, room changes are _very_ disorienting,” she says, paced and speedy all at once. Her eyes trail to Aaron’s, like a fox. “And who is this?”

Aaron, for once, is able to introduce himself ahead of Jon. “Aaron Burr, nice to meet you. I’m-“ He cuts himself off, only for Jon to blessedly (however belatedly) swoop in.

“He’s my boyfriend.”

She shakes Aaron’s hand, her dimples showing. “Levia Hart, you can call me Lev. I’ve heard _so_ much about you. Truly I’m jealous. I’ve been married to Rebecca for 2 years, and I still haven’t taken the family by storm as you’ve done in a few weeks. And, if my wife is to be trusted, I hear that Jon makes eyes at you for all hours of the day.”

Aaron likes her lilting, matter-of-fact tone, despite remembering William to have a similar one. He laughs, embarrassed. “I’m not sure about that one. Just out of curiosity, where are you from?”

“Northern Ireland, around Ulster,” she says, quizzical, but not perturbed.

That explains the familiarity. Same accent. “Ah, nice.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot! Silence, do you know Aaron?” Levia turns to Silence- who Aaron finally realizes to be David’s wife- and steps back to give her the floor.

“Hi,” Silence says quietly, shaking his hand with a tight smile. “We haven’t met officially, but I’ve also heard much about you. Did you get the soup? Are you well now?”

Aaron covers her hand with his before she can pull away from the handshake. “Yes. I have to thank you for that, it helped me a lot. I’m doing much better.”

“I’m happy,” she says, and her eyes light up a little. “We will help you again. With the room.”

Lev and Rebecca both gasp and begin to vibrate with anticipation. David looks at Silence with a strange smile, not unlike the way Jon looks at Aaron sometimes. He’s given up on hoping he’ll get called in to work, clearly, and ends up taking off his watch.

“Might as well get to it,” he says as he stands, and Silence smiles back, rubs her wrists compulsively.

Rebecca gasps again, for a different reason. “He took off the watch!”

“Oh my lord, David,” Jon says, eyebrows raised to a dramatic degree. “Are you alright? I’ve never seen you without the watch.”

Mr. Bellamy shakes his head. “I didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”

David scoffs and rolls his eyes, but doesn’t respond. “Where’s the paint?”

-

As it turns out, they completely forget that the beds hadn’t been moved yet.

David and Rebecca handle folding the bedframes and getting both beds into the garage, while Jon handles the side tables. Aaron, embarrassed, swipes his first aid tin, camera, and stuffed cat from under one bed and shoves them into the closet. After that, he helps Silence take books out of the bookshelf so it can be moved out as well. He’s never actually looked at what kind of books Jon had, but now he’s curious. _The Hero’s Journey_ , _The Common Law_ , _Other People’s Love Letters_ , _Accidental Saints-_ some of the titles he peeks at. Others are so old he can’t read the title on the spine. They put the books in the middle of the room in cardboard boxes while Lev pushes the shelf into the hallway.

They finish emptying Jon’s bedroom quickly. Strangely enough, he didn’t have that much in the first place. Just the beds, the side tables (which to Mr. Bellamy’s chagrin, Lucy is already gutting), a dresser, and the shelf. Aaron supposes that it feels so full because his own room was practically desolate. David pops open the paint can and makes a face at the color, but he pours it just the same.

Silence sees Aaron putting Matt’s medal case into the closet, looking at it like it might disappear if he walks away. “Is that his?”

“Yeah,” he says, and wonders how much she knows.

“I like them,” she adds.

“Thanks,” And for some reason, that makes him feel better about turning his back on the case momentarily.

With everyone having a job- Lev is taping the trim, David is reaching the tops of the walls, and Aaron’s doing detail work- the first coat of painting is done in three hours. When the bed arrives, Jon tells the delivery people that he can set it up on his own. This is easier said than done.

“Setting up a wooden frame is so _easy_ though,” Rebecca whines, as the task eventually falls into her hands. Jon shrugs apologetically, even knowing that it isn’t a problem for her. Both she and her brothers have to heft the mattress on afterwards. “Whoo.”

An hour break for dinner, and Aaron starts to handle the smaller things. Paint dries slowly. He puts a sheet on the bed and arranges the bedding in a nice enough way, but doesn’t bother trying to move any furniture back into the room. He sits on the bed he and Jon will share, contemplates how much he’s changed just in the last few months. He’d never gotten to make decisions before now. He’d never gotten to say no. He’d never gotten to say yes, either, for that matter.

At that thought, Aaron heads back to the kitchen and joins their game of Clue.

-

Late that night, with David and Silence curled up on the couch outside, he lies awake, enveloped by the new mattress. Aaron is startled by a sharp sigh, and turns around.

“I don’t know,” Jon says quietly, talking only partially to Aaron. “I’m going back to school in a week.”

Aaron nods in understanding. He didn’t think it was coming up that quickly, but he should have known. Summer doesn’t last forever. It’s August. Even so, he isn’t as bothered by the idea as he originally figured he would be.

“I’ll be coming home, of course, but I’m a lot more distant during the school year,” Jon explains. He frowns at the ceiling, conflicted and thoughtful.

“It’s okay,” Aaron says, and he touches Jon’s arm gently. He’s about to say that he’ll be fine at home, when he realizes that isn’t the issue. Jon doesn’t want to leave. It worries him as much as it relieves him. “Maybe I could call you between classes?”

He shrugs, seemingly dejected. After a long silence, he loops his arms around Aaron’s waist and nuzzles him with another sighing breath. “I don’t know,” Jon repeats. “It’ll be okay. I don’t want to leave, but at the same time,” He presses his lips to Aaron’s shoulder. “I know you’ll be so nice to come home to.”

Aaron flushes, embarrassed by how genuine those words sound.

“Anyway,” he continues. “It sucks that as soon as the bedroom is ready, I’m going to have to go back to school. I won’t even get to fully appreciate your artistic palate, with all the bar exam practices and such.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Aaron admits, glad that Jon doesn’t sound so comfortless anymore. He hears a snort, and then drifts off, only feeling a warm kiss to his jawline before sinking into the sunflower bed sheets. He doesn’t dream.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me @ transaaronburr.tumblr.com


End file.
